fence when he found Edward slipping
away from his control. It seemed as if Edward had the settled purpose
of raising up a new nobility to counterbalance the old. In =1467=
Warwick's brother, the Archbishop of York, was deprived of the
chancellorship. In foreign politics, too, Edward and Warwick
disagreed. Warwick had taken up the old policy of the Beauforts, and
was anxious for an alliance with the astute Louis XI., who had in
=1461= succeeded his father, Charles VII., as king of France. Edward,
perhaps with some thought passing through his head of establishing his
throne by following in the steps of Henry V., declared for an alliance
with Burgundy. In =1467= Warwick was allowed to go to France as an
ambassador, whilst Edward was entertaining Burgundian ambassadors in
England. In the same year Charles the Rash succeeded his father,
Philip the Good (see p. 306), as Duke of Burgundy, and in =1468=
married Edward's sister, Margaret. The Duke of Burgundy, the rival of
the king of France, was the lord of the seventeen provinces of the
Netherlands, and his friendship brought with it that peaceful
intercourse with the manufacturing towns of Flanders which it was
always the object of English policy to secure.

6. =Warwick's Alliance with Clarence. 1469--1470.=--Warwick, disgusted
with Edward, found an ally in Edward's brother, Clarence, who, like
Warwick, was jealous of the Woodvilles. Warwick had no son, and his
two daughters, Isabel and Anne, would one day share his vast estates
between them. Warwick gave Isabel in marriage to Clarence, and
encouraged him to think that it might be possible to seat him--in days
when everything seemed possible to the strong--on Edward's throne.
Edward had by this time lost much of his popularity. His extravagant
and luxurious life made men doubt whether anything had been gained by
substituting him for Henry, and in =1469= and =1470= there were
risings fomented by Warwick. In the latter year Edward, with the help
of his cannon, the importance of which in battles was now great,
struck such a panic into his enemies at a battle near Stamford that
the place of action came to be known as Lose-coat Field, from the
haste with which the fugitives stripped themselves of their armour to
make their flight the easier. Warwick and Clarence fled across the
sea. Warwick was governor of Calais, but his own officer there refused
to admit him, and he was forced to take refuge in France.

[Illustration: A fiftee